Glenn W. Harrell

Anyone desiring to discover statistics and writings touting the positive side of premarital co-habitation will have a brief search and will discover a trove of “encouragement.”

Anyone desiring to “live together” (co-habitation) before marriage commitment and ceremony has this going with them and for them:

 1-Sexual drive.   Often the male using love to get sex and the female using sex to get love.

2-The thrill of the unknown

3-A desire to “save money”

4-Closed ears to harsh realities. “Yes, but WE are different. Nothing bad will ever come of our love for each other”

5-A willingness to diminish and de-value each the other

6-A host of those gone before–Gloomy statistics (admittedly some positive, but they are the exception)

7-A willingness to walk barefoot into the thorn-patch and to pee on your own feet.

COMMON DENOMINATOR is impatience, immaturity seen as self-driven immediate gratification.

Why? Marriage requires mutual unselfishness.

Why? Living together is an act of selfishness that, when it plays out, leaves the couple feeling used.

–Living together is a cheap, and premature attempt at finding and supporting a lasting love.

–Living together does not eradicate or remove the elements required for marriage, as some would think.

It only exaggerates them and makes an eventual long-term-life-marriage more unlikely.

–Living together is two children attempting to play adult lives without the devotion to mechanism or maturity.

LIVING TOGETHER IS THE ULTIMATE STATEMENT OF PERSONAL SELFISHNESS COUCHED AS THE OPPOSITE.

–Living together is the BACK DOOR. If I use you and discover that I don’t “love you” anymore, then no one is hurt when I leave you for my next adventure into ME-MY-MINE! (fantasy)

Look who’s doing it

How about Mary and Joseph?

How about Pricilla and Aquilla?

Abraham and Sarah?

Ben Affleck and Jenifer Gardner? (most of Hollywood)

BOTTOM LINE

MARRIAGE IS SACRED A casual sex act treated like a meal and without the marriage act reduces the man and woman to mere animal passions and invites abuses. 

THE TEST DRIVE for a discovery of compatibility is for cars and mattresses.

ENGAGEMENT is for humans who wish to keep their dignity and awareness that two people becoming one is more than a kiss and I love you. This is the time and place for personal discoveries. Pre-marital counseling (at least 6 sessions) is how and when confrontations of honesty and truthfulness occur–not while caught up in the emotional entanglements of using sex as a commodity. An engagement period  following many “dates” together will reveal motives. During each date, each person is deciding if they will or will not commit to a lifelong commitment called “MARRIAGE” or not with their date. Is it time for the engagement or will you say, “This has been nice, “I think I will keep looking”.

If you are presently engaged in or considering premarital sex and or premarital cohabitation (living together)

Then you are not likely:

1-Looking for people to talk you out of it (or hanging out with those who try)

2-Engaged in premarital education and counseling

3-Evaluating how this will fit, or not, with your faith system, spiritual beliefs.

4-Seeking wisdom and exercising prudence.

5-Placing a value on your future or your friend’s future.

6-In essence, offering true love to your friend you say you love.

7-Ready at any time to swap out the partner in polyamorous fashion when they don’t “measure up”, or when they disappoint.

Non-Christians have little to no inhibition towards “shacking up” or living together outside a marital commitment and ceremony. Why should they? But, what about professing Christians?

If you ever determine that one or the other of you is not a Christian (disciple of Christ), then please stop and do not go any further. Either living together or considering marriage will sound alarm for the Christian who thinks of partnering with a non-Christian.

If both of you discover and profess that you have no interest in honoring Christ and His church and that you are not, nor have you ever been, or ever plan to be a Christian—THEN no problem—Do whatever seems best for you. Go for broke!

PROFESSING CHRISTIANS, HOWEVER, HAVE THIS TO CONSIDER, THEN ACCEPT OR REJECT:

• YOU MAY DISCOVER THAT YOU HAVE NOT BEEN A CHRISTIAN ALL ALONG.
• YOU MAY DISCOVER THAT YOU NO LONGER WANT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH THE CHURCH, CHRIST, OR CHRISTIANITY.
• YOU MAY DECIDE THAT SINCE SO MANY ARE DOING IT, IT MUST BE OK.

Following the same incline: unwed pregnancy, STD’s, fatherless homes, divorce and abortions. (and Colon Flow sales)

MARRIAGE IS HOLY AND FORMAL — JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN IN ITS ROOTS. It has been God’s creation and design all along. This is why no man/court can change the definition.

It is a time and place where a life-long commitment, not as a contract or prenuptial legal document for when the breakup will happen, but rather a beautiful ceremony of dignity and purity occurs. In Christianity, it is called a COVENANT made before God and man.

You may change your mind about Christ, but He will not change His mind or His Word about/for you.

1-What Jesus says: ‘’Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? Matthew 19:5

2- What our Spiritual Cloud of Witness Says: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” Hebrews 13:4

 CHRISTIAN DYNAMIC OF OWNERSHIP (cleverly avoided in shacking up to the end of an easy-out of a temporary commitment)

In marriage, the husbands body belongs to the wife, and the wife’s body belongs to the husband.

“Husbands and wives (not live-in partner or prostitute) should be fair with each other about having sex. A wife belongs to her husband instead of to herself, and a husband belongs to his wife instead of to himself. So don’t refuse sex to each other, unless you agree not to have sex for a little while, in order to spend time in prayer. Then Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” I Corinthians 7:3-5

God grants us the opportunity of disobedience and folly, but the decision is not ours to make.

In Christ, we belong to God.

“Don’t be immoral in matters of sex. That is a sin against your body in a way that no other sin is. You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God YOU ARE NO LONGER YOUR OWN. God paid a great price for you. So, use your body to honor God.” I Corinthians 6:18-20

A Christian may to hide or try to cover up a sinful lifestyle. In time, God, in His love and corrective mercy, will bring this person around to repentance. It may take a long time and much correction or a little. This depends on the stubbornness of the individual.

In Christ, we see the church as the Bride. 

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” –Ephesians 5:25-27

BUT A PROFESSING CHRISTIAN who proudly acts out in public rebellion and disobedience will have yet a different response from God and the church (bride) to which he/she supposedly belongs.

If you and I are Christian, then we can expect to hear from a loving God when we stray.

“Be patient when you are being corrected! This is how God treats His children. Don’t all parents correct their children? God corrects (nor abandons) all His children and if He doesn’t correct you, then you don’t really belong to Him. Our earthly fathers correct us, and we still respect them. Isn’t it even better to be given true life by letting our spiritual Father correct us? Our human fathers correct us for a short time, and they do it as they think best. But God corrects us for our own good, because He wants us to be holy as he is. It is never fun being corrected. In fact, at the time it is always painful. But if we learn to obey by being corrected, we will do right and live at peace. Now stand up straight! Stop your knees from shaking and walk a straight path.” Hebrews 12:7-13

If you, a professing Christian, chose to have sexual intercourse and or live together with another potential husband/wife before marriage, then this is a good test to discover if you really are a Christian.

Unless God has changed His mind, He has plans to correct and discipline. What might this look and feel like?

One way to find out, but we probably already know! Most of our wounds and bruises are SELF-INFLICTED.

So it will be for a Christian who thumbs their nose at God in this matter.

Better to hide or go for cover than to flagrantly, publicly disobey and dishonor Christ and His Bride—the church.

Potential Husband, loving leader and father—Here is your chance to be a real man.

Here is your opportunity to make the right choice. Lead—don’t follow. Love, don’t use anyone for your personal gratification.

Potential wife, if you are looking for a man who will honor his vows and be true to his love for you, then support him in his decision not to have sex with you before marriage and to live apart until marriage. All the statistics then are on your side.

Potential couple, if you have already made the sin and mistake of having premarital sex, you can stop right now.

You can find forgiveness through confession. Agree with God.

If you truly love one another and feel you are ready for marriage, then living together is not an option, patience and fidelity are.

1.Find a licensed counselor and take pre-marital counseling.

2-At the appropriate time, announce your engagement (just as Mary and Joseph)

3-At the appropriate time, announce your wedding date.

Know the dignity and purity of having family and friends support your lives together as a Christian couple.

HUSBAND–YOU ARE TO BE THE LEADER. From Ephesians 5, YOU DECIDE, not the woman, if anyone is to live together before marriage or not. Don’t wait on her to do the right thing.

“A husband should love his wife as much as Christ loved the church and gave His life for it.” (25)

“A husband should love his wife as much as he loves himself.” (28a)

“A husband who loves his wife shows that he loves himself.” (28b)

“So each husband should love his wife as much as he loves himself, and each wife should respect her husband.” (33)

NON-CHRISTIAN. Do not marry a Christian. Christian. Do not marry a non-Christian. Why?

“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? ¹⁵ And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? ¹⁶ And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:

¹⁷ Therefore

CONSCIENCE  TEST

“When you eat or drink or do anything else, always do it to honor God.” I Corinthians 10:31